Ballerina Trailer Wants You to Remember John Wick
A new assassin dances through John Wick’s world as Lionsgate has released a trailer for Ballerina. The first of what will probably be many spin-offs of the Keanu Reeves action franchise, Ballerina centers on Eve Macarro, a young girl who is inducted into the Ruska Roma crime family and is trained to be a ballerina and an assassin, skills she uses as an adult to seek revenge against her father’s killers. Ana de Armas stars as Eve, with Gabriel Byrne, Norman Reedus, Catalina Sandino Moreno, and Sharon Duncan-Brewster in supporting roles. Ian McShane, Lance Reddick, and Anjelica Huston return from the John Wick movies, as, of course, does Keanu Reeves as John Wick. Directed by Len Wiseman (though with a major assist from John Wick director Chad Stahelski) and written by John Wick 3 and 4 scribe Shay Hatten, Ballerina will pirouette into theaters on June 6, 2025. You can see the Ballerina trailer below:
The Ballerina trailer makes this movie look good, which is reassuring to a skeptic like me. I’m wary of “expanding universes” the way these John Wick spin-offs are designed to do. Usually, it’s a bad idea, as the films are interesting because of the main character; removing him means you lose the heart of the story. The High Table and its many offshoots, the ins and outs of the assassin business, the hotels, the many agents and emissaries and rules, all of that was cool, but the movies worked primarily because we cared about Wick and his journey back into the hell he once escaped. It’s hard to remove that and keep people invested, and even attempting it feels cynical and artificial. Moreover, a big part of why John Wick’s world was so interesting was because of its mystery; it was fun to get small glimpses into how the assassins’ guild, the High Table, and the various criminal organizations functioned while always feeling like an outsider looking in. Our lightning rod was Wick, who acted as a guide through an underworld we could never fully understand. The more you branch off from John Wick’s story, the more you risk ruining that. And, finally, I think people get carried away with the characters they want to see spun off. It’s understandable and almost a natural reaction to seeing a badass like, for example, Caine in John Wick: Chapter 4. But is Caine really someone who could carry a movie, or is he cool because he was used just right in a supporting role?
The Ballerina trailer tackles one of these problems. The concern about spinning off a character unsuited to lead a film is nullified by using an original character in Eve. And she’s played by Ana de Armas, a compelling actress you don’t mind following on a two-hour revenge mission. Making the lead a woman helps as well because we can see a new part of the Ruska Roma and their assassin training. According to the trailer, training a female is very different from training a male, and I love that; the instructor is teaching Eve and her classmates to recognize their physical limitations and find ways of overcoming them. This is a pretty fantastical world, so I don’t think many people would’ve had trouble accepting a woman assassin – we’ve already seen some, and they were tough – but the attention to detail makes it even better and easier to buy into. It also separates her from Wick, which is good because, if the trailer is any indication, Ballerina very much wants you to know it’s associated with the John Wick movies. I know Keanu Reeves’ involvement had been widely reported already, but they sure do relish blowing his big reveal. And the tagline “From the World of John Wick” appears on screen before Ballerina does. I don’t blame Lionsgate for having cold feet, but the success of Ballerina (artistically) will depend on how well it stands on its own. The action looks cool, which is probably largely due to Chad Stahelski coming back for reshoots. I’m more interested than I was, and I suppose that means the Ballerina trailer did its job.
Let us know what you think of the Ballerina trailer in the comments!
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Comments (2)
Off topic, but the Bolshoi ballet school was founded the same year as the USA, in 1776. Their ballerinas sometimes do train in Cuba, where Ana is from, so it all kind of goes together pretty well.
One thing is the video still shot. Those neon rays make it look Cyberpunk, like Blade Runner, also, very tech-noir, so that’s a win. Just that very first look.
Lady assassins are real and anyone can pull a trigger. Would expect ladies to be more into seduction and poison though. Will also say this about John Wick is that Keanu trained at Taran Tactical, and there is a lady there named Tetiana Gaidar and you are not going to out shoot her. Just sayin. You could run, but you’d just go down tired. She actually looks a bit like Ana, too.
The one criticism is yeah, the physical combat is where you have to suspend disbelief because that would not happen.